Four days after two pit bulls gravely mauled a horse in San Marcos, resulting in the animal’s death, a tip led animal control officers to a Valley Center home where the dogs had been stashed by their owner, officials said Thursday.

The dogs were ultimately surrendered and will be euthanized, perhaps by the end of the week, officials with the San Diego Humane Society said.

The owner — who officials have declined to identify — won’t face criminal charges, even though he misled investigators who were searching for the animals, said Steve MacKinnon, chief of the agency’s law enforcement division. He said the man could still face civil liability in the horses death.

The announcement marks the end of a frightening few days in the San Marcos neighborhood where the horse was attacked on Saturday.

“This is all-around an extremely tragic incident and our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected,” the Humane Society said in a statement released Thursday. “The decision to euthanize an animal is never easy to make, and we take this responsibility very seriously. But public safety is the ultimate priority.”

Humane Society officials are still “scratching our heads” as to why the two dogs, which weigh perhaps 50 or 60 pounds, attacked the much larger animal, MacKinnon said.

“We will never know, never understand,” he said. “This is something very unusual.”

The attack happened about 9 p.m. Saturday. San Marcos resident Bri Valdivia, 26, saw two dogs attacking her family’s 15-year-old horse, Smokey, in their rain-soaked yard on Fulton Road, just east of Woodland Parkway. She and her grandfather intervened and the dogs ran off.

A few hours later in the same part of town, a good Samaritan spotted and contained two loose dogs, one of which was injured and bloody, possibly from a horse kick.

We will never know, never understand. This is something very unusual.— Steve MacKinnon, San Diego Hamane Society law enforcement chief , as to why two pit bulls attacked a horse

That person called the Humane Society, and animal control officers took the dogs — both of which were micro-chipped and licensed — to a veterinary hospital, which treated them and tracked down their owner, who lives about a mile southwest from where the horse was attacked. The officers failed to tell the hospital to hold on to the animals.

“It was a miscommunication on our part,” MacKinnon said.

When authorities first contacted the owner, he told them the dogs had run off again. An anonymous tip led eventually led officers to the Valley Center location.

The person taking care of the pit bulls was “completely unaware” that the horse and been mauled and that the dogs were being sought, MacKinnon said.

Valdivia said her family is definitely relieved that the dogs have been caught, but that she’d like to see an attempt to rehabilitate them. If their behavior can’t be modified, “we stand behind” the decision to put them down, she said.

She also said her family plans to sue the owner, but would rather have seen him criminally prosecuted.

The man has had previous problems with dogs getting loose. In 2015, he relinquished a pit bull to the Humane Society after the dog had repeatedly gotten free. That dog was ultimately put down.